So, where's everyone at with Jalen going into next year?

I do not care about a 2nd pick. I care about his comparables. Devin Booker was bottom in the league in terms of efficiency in his earlier years.

The only thing that bothered me is Jalen’s consistently larger variance.

Also. You can be as hostile as you want in getting to people’s discussion. But I’ve answered your question in my way and if you don’t like it, so be it.

 

Ok fine I won’t. Sheesh.

 

His comparables right now are the other players who are bottom 30 in the league in TS% and bottom 15 in FG% and 3 point%.

LOL, "answered in my way" is just "your way" of saying you dodged the questions because the answers to the questions go against the narrative you are desperately pushing.

Jalen Green's numbers are worse in his 3rd season than they were in his first...is that the case with Devin Booker or any other ridiculous comparison you want to make? Of course not.

I just want some honesty.

 

I've never seen a player with that kind of swing throughout his career. Maybe there have been some. I just can't think of any.

I've seen players drop off a cliff after a nice stretch of maybe a couple of seasons. I've seen players make big jump from mediocrity to stardom. I mean, sooner or later, you have to become something, rather than keeping the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde back and forth.

If Jalen continues to be like this, he will be one of a kind. They need to put him in a lab to study his brain.

Usually, when a young player goes up and down, it is because he has a lot of things to learn and to change. So sometimes he gets it together and sometimes he just loses it. When a guy has developed steady skills, he will find an identity.

 

The major gripe is his on court intelligence and his off court intelligence do strike me as concerning and also the reason why I was not high on him when he got drafted to be honest.
His questionable body type and slim shoulders.

And he is still highly reliant on athleticism (never go full Westbrook), circus shots and his inconsistent step back 3 balls.

I think there is a niche for microwave scorers like that but he has to develop some kind of consistency for that as well.

He is getting the double and triple team treatment from opposing teams just to screw with his head and ego......all flash...little substance or blue collar game.

 

The guy you are looking for is Andrew Wiggins. His high were fantastic when he was in Timberwolves, just like Jalen.

 

If he is a low IQ player, he is a low IQ player. I am not arguing against it. He will consistently be low IQ. That's my point. You can't be low IQ for a couple of month and then suddenly become high IQ for a month and then back to low IQ again.

I don't think teams double team him just to screw with his head and ego. They double team him because when he is on, he is devastating. When he's not, nobody will double him. In fact, we have seen how teams just sag off of him when he can't hit an open shot.

 

One of the most talented and tantalizing players that graced the organization but just so meh type of overall package.

Sometimes really insert Nick Young shot and fail.....

The NBA is full of those scoring runs........he is that kind of player and then the run ends. Basics.

Also this passive aggressive shades he throws at Udoka and the Offense. This entitlement did never work here.

 

Thank you.

 

Yeah, Wiggins's trajectory looks similar. I didn't follow him enough when he was in Minny to know if he was like Jalen's wild up and down swings within the same season.

He turned into a solid role player in GS.

 

Then you ask yourself why that is that the Nikolas and Lukas dominate this league on ZERO athleticism.....

Guess, they learned their craft and fundamentals at home in Europe.

Bball is simple.

 

Wiggins is a little different that he was not really into basketball for some reason....

It seemed he lost sort of interest or bball was not his priority.....but I guess that is with a lot of guys according to Patrick Beverley.

 

If you think counting stats paint the right picture, I don’t want to argue with you any more.

 

Dillon Brooks message to CFans:

 

If you think literally all of the stats don't matter, you probably should just give up on talking basketball.... and all sports for that matter.

If a player is a SHOOTING guard and they are one of the worst shooters in the NBA, that's a problem. Full stop.

You can't find ANY metric that suggests Jalen is worth a **** so the best you can do is "its okay that he sucks, other players sucked for a shorter period of time and got better so that means Jalen will miraculously become a completely different caliber of player at some undisclosed time in the future."

I get that you just v REALLY want to believe and that's the best you can come up with... but it's pretty embarrassing

 

Ok Bobby, here is some honesty.

The questions and latter comments you raised were not very good to say the least.

“His comparables right now are the other players who are bottom 30 in the league in TS% and bottom 15 in FG% and 3 point%.

Jalen Green's numbers are worse in his 3rd season than they were in his first...is that the case with Devin Booker or any other ridiculous comparison you want to make? Of course not.“

No. His comps cannot be someone who’s 28 and in his peak, or someone who’s at center position, or someone who’s past prime that is old. These players can suck at shooting and I couldn’t care less as comparisons to Jalen Green. They are not comps to him. No.

His comps are players that came into this league with the same prototype as JG.

If you know how to read graphs,



I’m comparing the leftmost section of the graph, where all these players played only ~250 games, where Jalen is now. Despite his terrible two and half seasons, his growth trajectory is holding his ground nicely, especially tracking closely with the player he’s most compared to, Devin Booker. I cited DARKO DPM because so far, along with EPM, it has shown the best predictive power among all the advanced metrics.

Now, you may argue that there is selection bias, that there are prototypes that failed to pan out that I should include there. Fair. But there is evidence in the graph that answered your question: did his play show growth?

This is a prototype whose growth is the most nonlinear. It’s hard to draw any definitive conclusion after two seasons. Especially after tragically inept coaching from Silas.

His numbers in the prior seasons were MOOT, USELESS, GARBAGE as comparison baseline for his growth, because they were generated with NO basketball, pro basketball structure and system. I suggest you throw them to the trash can from now on.

His progress, especially in the second half of the season in processing the game was evident. It held up in eye tests. And it showed up in multiple advanced stats. (Not shown here, but look at his WS per 48, BPM and VORP as well as EPM trajectory in season). Saying that his stats deteriorated from the past two seasons means NOTHING from on court impact and winning basketball perspective. It means NOTHING to me.

I do agree with you regarding his shooting variance, it is particularly bad compared to his comps over their earlier career years, but it’s early to give up given his other progress so far, and we saw flashes in his insanity run.

Finally, your point about “no other top 2 pick has had to be benched multiple times due to motivation and plays.”

I’m sorry but this is incredibly CHILDISH. This is a chicken-egg situation. He is being coached, and it’s clearly showing that 1) the coaching works and 2) he’s coachable and willing to be spanked. If, despite all these spanking, he’s still terrible game after game, then you might draw a conclusion that he’s not malleable. The fact that he has been benched and bounced back, not only bounced back, but continually showed stable growth (in a variety of fields in the game) should be CELEBRATED, not scoffed.

He might not get a max extension, but he HAS grown to be a better player.

 

Fun data
Do not max

 

I remember reading something like: Tyrese Maxey was the most inconsistent player taking more than X number of shots last season. I think they measured standard deviation of game score.

Jalen's last 23 games of defense and offense and winning (we have 2 remaining to make it 25) would be extension worthy if he averaged them over a season. That's more than a quarter of a season. Includes good and bad streaks. His bad games are HEAVILY linked to double teams and a packed paint. I'm sure better average shooting will take care of 90% of the consistency issue. His rim finishing is already up to like 64% now IIRC. It's really been overblown.

 

Well, this team reached 40 wins. Something that very few anticipated. Very few.
But... the haters and stupid people who have never played this sport continue criticizing absolutely everything: "Jabari is a bust", "Jalen is Corey Brewer", "Amen can't shoot", "Sengun can't play defense", "Cam is an idiot."

"Two things are infinite, the universe and the stupidity of some Rockets fans, and I'm not sure about the universe."
-Albert Einstein-